Thursday, January 1, 2009

Since it's January 1st, I figured I would do a quick year in review for 2008. It was quite a year for Beth and I and we are looking forward to 2009 being even better. We rang in 2008 in Rome, Italy with my entire family. My sister and brother-in-law and their two kids flew from France, as my parents and little brother and sister flew from Dubai, and Beth and I flew from Houston to meet up in Rome. We had a great time seeing the sights all over Italy and spending quality family time together.

After returning from Italy, our new house began construction. And in the middle of March, we closed on our new house together. In fact, during a few days in March, it was my birthday, I got a new job and quit my other one, and we closed on our house. I ended up having two weeks off of work between jobs and it gave Beth and I a chance to do some extra stuff to our house that we weren't about to pay the builder to do(since they like to mark things up 300%). I finally moved into the house in April and had a bachelor pad for a few months before we got married and Beth moved in. In May, I had my bachelor party in Chicago. Two of my friends from Houston as well as my best man Jacob Lawson and groomsman Matt Twyman accompanied me to Chicago and we had a great time. We got to go to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field which I had always wanted to do.

June saw the end to Beth's first year of teaching. I think it was a rollercoaster year for her, but made her realize how much she enjoys it. And made me realize how good she is at it. A day after Beth got done with school, we hopped on a 18 hour flight to Dubai. Emirates Airlines started a non-stop flight from Houston to Dubai and Beth and I decided that'd be a great idea.....never again. 18 hours on a plane is miserable. I think we had four meals, each watched three or more movies, and listenend to at least a thousand crying babies over the 18 hours. We had a great time in Dubai for Sean and Kelsey's high school graduation. It was my third time to go and Beth's first. We made the mistake of going running the day after we got there. It was only 110 degrees outside, I figured it'd be no problem. Wrong. I'm lucky we lived to talk about it. While in Dubai, we also got a chance to spend a few days in Oman as Beth and I went with my parents to a resort on the Arabian Gulf for a few days.

After returning from Dubai, we spent a couple of weeks just doing normal stuff before getting a pleasant surprise at the end of June. Stacy Lewis(Beth's sister) was playing in her first golf tournament as a professional, the U.S. Women's Open outside of Minneapolis. We were a little disappointed the first few days because they weren't showing Stacy on tv too much. Then on Saturday, Stacy made her move and by the end of the day she was leading the U.S. Women's Open going into the final round. Well this threw us into a scramble. We had to get to Minnesota to watch Stacy play the final round of a Major golf tournament. So what we did was book tickets from Dallas at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. Keep in mind that we booked our tickets on Saturday night around 6 p.m. It was Beth and I, Beth's Mom and sister, and Stacy's swing coach and his wife who left Houston at 2 a.m. to drive to Dallas in time to catch our direct flight to Minneapolis. Luckily we landed and got our rental car in time to make it to the golf course right before Stacy teed off. Stacy ended up coming in 3rd and we couldn't be more proud of her. She had a great 2008 and we can't wait to see what 2009 will bring her on the LPGA Tour.

After returning from our spur-of-the-moment trip to Minnesota, we only had a few weeks until our wedding. And it came quickly. We had tons of friends and family from all over come to Houston to share in our special day. And it couldn't have been any better. We had a get together at our house on Thursday night, the rehearsal dinner on Friday night, and the wedding Saturday night. On Sunday morning, my and Beth's parents' hosted a brunch at Beth's parents' house and it was a good time to see everyone before we boarded a plane to start the journey of our honeymoon.

Our honeymoon was amazing even if it involved extensive travel. We flew from Houston to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Hong Kong, and finally Hong Kong to Phuket, Thailand. We spent 6 days in Phuket before flying back to Hong Kong for a few days. And then finally back to Houston.

After returning from our honeymoon, Beth moved into our house and spent the next couple of weeks trying to get settled in. At the end of August Beth started her second year of teaching and this time she was at a new school as she switched school districts in the middle of the summer. She is now a 6th grade Math and Science teacher instead of only teaching Math. About three weeks into school, we were a little surprised when a little hurricane named Ike decided to form off the coast of Africa and somehow ended up passing over our house many days later. We live about 80 miles from the coast and I would like to think the odds of a hurricane with the strength of Ike going over our house are slim to none. Well slim happened in September. Beth and I spent the night in our closet as winds and rain pounded our house making us think the windows would shatter at anytime. Around 1 a.m. our power went and out along with 2.3 million other Houstonians. Unfortunately for us, our power remained out for 16 days. We ended up moving in with Beth's parents for a week since they did have a power. September was definitely an interesting month to be in Houston.

October and November flew by although we did get a couple of trips in to Oklahoma. One for my best friend Justin's wedding and then once to go to Oklahoma City to hang out with my friend Matt.

Before we knew it, it was December and I was surprising Beth with a trip to New York City. We ended up having a great time exploring the city and can now mark New York City at Christmas off our list of things to do. To see pics of New York, just checked out one of our previous posts.

2009 should be a great year and we look forward to everything it may bring. Happy New Year!

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Augusta

About Tony and Beth

Beth grew up in The Woodlands, Texas just north of Houston. Tony grew up in Bartlesville, OK. They met in 2005 when Beth started working with Tony in The Woodlands. On July 3, 2007, they got engaged and on July 26, 2008 they were married in The Woodlands. Tony and Beth welcomed their first child, Cole Edward, on March 18th, 2011. Tony and Beth love to travel and have been all over the world together to places like Australia, London, Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, Venice, Rome, Florence, Dubai, Oman, Thailand, and Hong Kong. Besides traveling, Tony and Beth enjoy running and completed their first marathon in Monterey, CA in April 2010.